


where the sea sleeps

by orphan_account



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Attempts at humour please be nice, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Fluff and Angst, I'll try to give every person equal screentime, M/M, Mild Language, Not very graphic depictions of violence but im leaving the warning above just in case, Please don't read if you're easily triggered because it will very gently touch on sensitive themes, There's no main ship they all get moments but some might be more uhh like established, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26168071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When a god goes missing on Christmas, the only people left at the camp are the year-round campers, otherwise endearingly known as the 'stray kids'. They're absolutely not the right people for the job. But they're the only people for the job.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Yang Jeongin | I.N, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin, Lee Felix/Seo Changbin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

An Introduction of Sorts (1)

As most legendary demigods start, Chan first discovered his powers at a frankly disgusting public bathroom when he exploded a toilet. To be fair, the appearance of a tiny blinking frog had caused him to be appropriately shocked enough to invoke the lord of toilets and make his grand debut.

Things only escalated from there. Suddenly he was able to communicate with his younger sister’s guppy who later tragically died and had a lovely toilet funeral. He wasn’t very interesting, but the dolphins and colourful fish at the beach were. There were also mean fish who frequently reminded him gleefully, “You’re swimming in our pee!”

The discovery that he could breathe underwater and did not just have a gigantic lung capacity as his mother had convinced him was also strange. 

At the tender age of eight he had compiled a messy scrapbook of incriminating “evidence”, including a rather disturbing log of Orange’s last words, and confronted his mother.

That had sparked a round of teary hugs then what might have been the longest talk of his life, which mainly consisted of:  
“Your dad is not your dad. Wait, that came out wrong. Your dad now is not your actual dad.”  
“You can explode toilets and talk to fish because-” “My dad is a fish man?” “Oh god, no.”  
“The world isn’t all kind gods and goddesses, there’s also-“ “Bad fish men?” 

In the end, he got the gist. His father was Poseidon, god of fish and toilets and water and blah blah blah. He had magical powers. His destiny was to get a cool weapon and fight evil monsters. Cool.

Until he reached eleven, and he heard his mother whispering that “at twelve the scent becomes stronger, the monsters will start coming” and “I don’t want to send him off to that camp, they’ll bring him to his death.” that he finally started, very, very gently easing his mom to tell him more about this camp and the monsters and the scent, and his little small worldview collapsed. 

Suddenly the world was thrown into turmoil. Demigods would die young. So would their families when they reached twelve and started to wear Eau de Monsters-come-here. He thought of tiny Rose, his mother, his dad, he fluffy puppy. He would go to the camp to save his family, he decreed grandly in front of his clownfish plushie. 

Weeks of cajoling, begging, and countless reassurances and tears later, Chan packed his bags to go to Camp Half-Blood.

In Korea, as the Australian camp had no qualms about sending a twelve year old to his doom, while the Korean one had a decent age limit of fourteen.

It wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows, being a few thousand metres away from his family at such a young age, but Chan charmed all the older campers there with his infectious smile and personality, and he settled in nicely after a while. The female campers were treated like their son, which got annoying at times but was still a sweet sentiment.

He might have felt a little left out, as all his friends grew up past the age limit and went on brilliant, brave quests, while he was always deemed ‘too young to do much of anything’. 

So he trained and trained, waiting for salvation-- people who he, too would go on quests with. 

Jisung hadn’t played the guitar ever. He swore he hadn’t. That didn’t explain how some kind of urge had overwhelmed him and he’d picked up that old guitar in the music room and started playing “Sunday Morning”. Was he some sort of late-blooming child genius?

Being a child-genius orphan sounded pretty sweet, he could probably become some kind of rich guy, and one day write a beautiful biography of his shit childhood and deliver inspirational Powerpoint speeches. A guy could dream, right?

After a spectacular fail at attempting to show one of the students his guitar prowess and playing something that sounded a little bit like a goat shrieking, he came to the stunning conclusion that he was, not in fact a child genius. So what had that been, then? 

It only escalated from there. When he made up a weird song to his orphanage director about how he deserved another chocolate chip cookie, she actually gave it to him. While this might not have seemed like much, Mrs. Choi had a heart of actual rock, bitter at her career choice of nanny to many loud kids, and Jisung was the crux of the constantly high decibel level. Basically, she hated him with every fiber of his being.

Even with the weird shit, life still went on. Jisung still got shoved against the lockers, the orphanage still sucked, he still had no friends. 

Until one his way home from school one day, when he noticed a man in a very cliched trench coat and sunglasses in a car’s side view mirror. His footsteps quickened, and so did the footsteps behind him. Crap. He had totally slept through the assembly where some random police officer had blabbered on what to do if a suspicious stranger was following you. 

Find a crowd, find a crowd, right. He turned left into an alley which had a shortcut to the main street. Fuck. An alley. When he connected the dots, he couldn’t believe how incredibly stupid that move had been. Shit.

He started full-on running, fight or flight response activated. The man started loping after him too, and he was like a freaking Usian Bolt or something, because he caught up in Jisung in the span of a few seconds and pressed his body roughly against the cracked red brick wall. 

His sunglasses had slipped, revealing his one eye, directly in the center of his forehead. Jisung did the most rational thing ever-- he screamed. Hard to stay courageous in the face of some monster or something. A cyclops. ( Thank you, random mandatory Greek mythology class. Now he could identify his killer right before he was killed.) 

Oh god, oh god, holy shit, were the thoughts running through his head currently, so he was completely perplexed at how he managed to rather calmly say, “Good day, sir.” 

And then he screamed. 

“Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me,” he hums in desperation. 

The cyclops looked shocked. “No kill?” He asked, pondering this abstract concept thoughtfully. He puts Jisung down, none too gently and walks off, muttering to himself. 

He slumps against the wall, taking deep breaths to slow his heartbeat. 

About two minutes later, he hears wing beats. A really large bird?

Two guys appear on a flying horse. Jisung continues lying there. He’s not even shocked anymore. Pfft. Flying horses? He sees that every day, along with monsters from Greek mythology!

“We’re late again! He could have died because of your donut obsession, Jae!” The boy with dark hair complained, pointing at him (rude).

“Not my fault the Pegasus flew past a donut place!” The boy with the fluffy all over the place hair and glasses holds out his arms defensively. “ Anyway, I trusted that he could take care of himself!” He winks greasing at Jisung.

They explain to him all the demigod prattle and stuff and Jisung’s mind is blown for the third time today! Yay!

He has a jolly good time shrieking with horror as they drag him onto the pegasus! Yay! 

Isn’t life fun?

When Chan is called to the Big House, he doesn’t expect to be met with a sulky boy who is for once, a couple years younger than him. 

“Do you know the dangers of placing me on that death machine?” He whines to Chiron, who’s keeping his centaur legs folded away for now. 

Jae-hyung sits across him, next to Younghyun-hyung. “Our Pegasi are trained. We saved your life, you ungrateful ingrate!” 

“No, I saved my own life while you were getting donuts! Get your priorities sorted out, man-child!”

“You little-“ Thank god Younghyun-hyung manages to clap his hand over his foul mouth before profanities get out.

“Let’s calm down, shall we?” Chiron says with a nervous chuckle. “Any idea who’s your godly parent, Mr. Han?” 

“I never knew my parents. I lived at an orphanage.” He replies, crossing his arms, the expression on his face one Chan has seen all too many times as he interacted with demigods. His heart twinges. He knows he’s really, really lucky.

“Oh! Chan, come here!” Woojin calls, relieved to change the subject. 

“Hey,” Chan grins, holding out a hand. “I’m Chan.” 

Jisung tentatively takes it.

They don’t know it yet, but this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

(Later, Jisung is claimed, a bright golden sun over his head. His godly father is Apollo, god of music, the sun, poetry, archery, etc. It also means that Younghyun-Hyung and him will be cabin mates, which will most definitely spark chaos.) 

Changbin plugs in his earphones and stuffs his hand into the pockets of his black hoodie, which has some English word spray painted in graffiti down the front. He settles onto an empty seat.

After he alights from the bus, he makes his way to the dilapidated apartment building not too far away and after a while, enters one of the apartments on the fourth floor. 

“Hey, auntie,” He smiles as he places his bag down, “How was your day?” 

She totters around, fussing over him messing up his hair, but he doesn’t mind. “Oh, it was good, it was good. How was yours.”

“Good too! Have you eaten?” He asks, already heading to the kitchen.

Changbin’s been coming over to his neighbour Aunty Chen’s place for as long as he can remember, thirteen years now, because his mother works all day, leaving the home at dawn and reaching at midnight. He’s grateful to her, because he knows how hard she works everyday for him, can see it in her perpetual eyebags and prematurely gray hair. It still doesn’t change the fact that he’s closer to Aunty Chen than he will probably ever be with his mother.

He makes two plates of fried rice and they laugh and talk as they spoon rice into their mouth.

Changbin’s cheer is a little forced. Things have been… weird lately. First, shadows were shifting. Imperceptibly, when he stepped into a patch of light, shadows would follow and dim it. Not just his own shadow. Maybe just a coincidence, but he couldn’t shake this feeling. Then there had been the time when he had, very briefly, seen cow horns on his bus driver’s head. Maybe he needed some hallucination treatment or something. 

Heh, his life is sounding like some young adult book where the main character gasp! discovers he has powers from some kind of mystical source and goes on to save the world with a couple of trusty sidekicks. 

Well, he certainly does fit the stereotype of the emo guy at the back of the class who’s neglected by his only parent. Cue the tears, yes, poor, poor, emo Changbin. 

As Aunty Chen moves as if to stand up after wolfing down her rice, Changbin looks up. His spoon clatters against the table. 

“Aunty, RUN!” Towering above her is some kind of… demon lady. It sounded pretty ridiculous like that, but some kind of grandma with pinched cheeks and purple lips and bone thin limbs with bat wings that spanned the whole room had appeared in Aunty Chen’s small kitchen, hovering over her small frame.

As she snarled, she revealed sharp, yellowed teeth, like a shark and blackened gums. This was not a hallucination. The sounds and smell were very much real. His hands were trembling slightly, but he tried to hide it. 

“Aunty!” He called out desperately once more. “Get away from that thing!” 

Aunty Chen smiles serenely. “Oh, Changbin, so blind.” 

As Changbin watched in horror, her skin sloughed off, Aunty Chen’s cheerful round cheeks sunk in, and as though shedding a skin, another demon lady burst forth. Holy shit.

“A-aunty? What the hell is happening? You’re possessed by a demon lady?” 

Fumbling, Changbin grabbed a kitchen knife off the counter and pointed it at them, “Don’t touch me! What the HELL!” 

“Hell indeed, son of the underworld.” The first demon lady leered, black eyes blank. “We are the Furies.” 

“You can talk! Oh my god!” Changbin’s voice was embarrassingly high pitched and squeaky, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“Of course I can talk. I am Megaera – Punisher of infidelity, oath breakers, and theft. I work for your father.” 

“That doesn’t mean anything to me! I don’t know my father! What do you mean son of the underworld? My dad was a mafia boss or something? What’s happening?” Changbin backs himself against the kitchen counter, speaking far too quickly like he usually does when he’s shocked. 

“So many questions. I forgot how infuriating children can be. It’s been a while since I had to babysit a child for so long. That sweet grandma persona was so hard to keep up with. Your father is Hades, Lord of the Underworld. Haven’t you seen the signs, glaring right at you?” 

Changbin slumps into a dead faint after that, the shock catching up to him at last. When he wakes up, he’s in some sort of cot, with two anxious faces peering down at him. 

They're Jisung and Chan, and within ten seconds of conversation, they blow his mind. Gods and goddesses and greek myths are real. Aunty Chen was really a freaking underworld spirit thing called a Fury, who brought him to this camp. For demigods, who were milling around, eating hot dogs as they spar. Boom. Changbin shuts down again. 

In a few months, he stretches his mind around this abstract concept. He and Jisung and Chan are now inseparable. His mom is more than grateful that the camp is willing to take him in year-round while she gets back on her feet. 

It really all works out pretty nicely. 

Chan hefts his long, bronze sword. Riptide. The wave that takes one by surprise. Poetic. Really, it just doubles as a handy pen when he’s struck by those rare bursts of inspiration and has to write snatches of lyrics down in the middle of nowhere. 

Jisung unslings his combat guitar from his back (yes, those exist, for what reason, Chan wasn’t sure, but it suited him just fine), obviously, he does a strange pose . He thinks it makes him look like a hot warrior.. Keyword: thinks. 

Changbin readies his broadsword, black Stygian iron shining with a polished gleam even in the inky darkness. 

“Come on,” Chan whispers, he can feel, below the ground, the water swirling through the pipes. He urges it to return to where it came from. Water was a strong force, fire was far too overrated, honestly. The seemingly calm waves could become angry, swirling whirlpools, or precise, strong jets. The water burst out, and the thin floor they were standing on collapsed, plunging them right into the middle of the headquarters of the trafficking ring. 

Demigod trafficking rings had been springing up like weeds, and the camp had given the three of them the mission to pull them out. They had started up to accommodate the needs of old, greasy, rich jerks, who wanted to get more rich, more powerful, or just wanted a little entertainment. It made Chan absolutely sick to the stomach. He had seen how the demigods were treated like cuts of meat, how they were only valuable if they had a flashy, loud power. Disgusting. 

Now he would kill those douchebags. Whirling and slashing with practiced ease, he quickly took out the armed guards. Calling on the sewer water from earlier, he knocked them off his feet. A bullet came close, but Changbin slashed it out of the air, dashing between shadow to shadow, coming up behind unsuspecting guards and killing them. Jisung went into a rendition of “Stairway to Heaven”, killing them instantly. A classic. 

He had been to a few of these, so he knew that lining the corridors were specialized cells after cells, the stone of the door blending seamlessly into the wall. Grunting a little from the considerable effort, Changbin split into cracks the more hollow sounding parts of the walls. Chan hops into the hole and helps up a young girl. She can’t be older than six and herface is streaked with dirt and grime, and what looks like dried blood. Oh god. He passes her one of the flasks of water they brought along and sits her against the wall. Jisung and Changbin are doing similar things as well. 

“Uh, Chan-hyung? You might want to see this.” Changbin calls out, having split open the last cell. 

“Hmmm?” He says, passing a chocolate bar to a boy. “What?”

“Ah.” He remarks as he nears. “I see.” Really, that’s the only thing you can say when you see lighting sparking out of a hole in a wall. When he peeks in, he sees a boy, huddled in a corner of the room, face turned away hands over his ears and stinging electricity that stems from his body and arcs throughout the room in a beautiful display of pure, raw power. Chan thinks this is what mortals must have felt before Zeus smote them into a pile of ashes. It was beautiful the way that poisonous snakes were colourful. 

“Holy shit.” Jisung says, coming up behind him, “A son of Zeus.” He whispers (very rare), in slight awe. 

“Do something.” He demands of Chan, nudging him forward. “You’re the dad. Help the child.”

“How do I do that without freaking dying, genius?” Chan hisses. 

“I don’t know, do some water shit!” 

Wait. Water shit. That’s exactly it. Chan remembers this from his procrastination 12am water research when he had literally nothing else to do. Pure water is an electrical insulator. So if theoretically, he can get some kind of pure water shield, he can go through.

For once his all nighters paid off. Pure water? How does one obtain pure water? Extraction? 

He takes a whole, swirling mass of sewer water. Changbin protests and Jisung makes an adequately disgusted face. “Are you going to throw it at him to knock him out and stop the electricity? Cause it just might work.”

Chan concentrates, slowly drawing out the purest, freshest water molecules out of the sewer stuff, wincing from the exertion and the horrible smell. When he’s done, he moves it around him in a semblance of a shield. 

Moving into the haze of the electricity, his nose itches from the slightly burnt smell. 

“Hey, I’m Chris. Or Chan, if it’s easier.”

The boy is still turned away from him stubbornly. 

“I know you’ve gone through a lot. You might not trust me, but I’m here to help, I swear.” He holds his hands out placatingly and speaks in that talking-to-child voice he mastered when Rose was a baby. 

“You don’t know anything.” He growls back, aggressive. “And you’re right. I have no reason to trust you.” His voice is raspy, like sandpaper, he must not have drank water.

It’s progress, at least, even if it's an angry one. “You’re correct. But, I have supplies. Food, water, a place to stay, where you’ll be safe.” 

The boy’s pinky twitches, a rare movement. A tell. That’s good. “Not the first time I’ve been told that.”

“Okay, let’s start slowly then.” Raising his arms above his head, he lowers himself down onto the filthy brick floor delicately. “Your name, maybe?” Sitting down would be a show of vulnerability. It might put him more at ease, at least. Also, he feels that he’s going to be there for a long time. He turns to look at Changbin and Jisung, shooing them away. GO HELP THE OTHER KIDS FIRST. He mouths. 

“Jeongin.” The boy visibly relaxes a little when they leave. That’s promising. 

“Are you hurt anywhere?” He probes gently. They couldn’t have been too kind to him to be able to contain his lightning. When the boy, no, Jeongin doesn’t respond, with utmost care, he crawls over a little and extends his arms. Thank god he doesn’t kill him. 

They’re pockmarked with ugly, purple bruises, and the scabs of poorly healed cuts. Now that he’s closer, he sees the tell-tale signs of whip marks on the back of his legs. His pretty fox-like eyes that provide the only shine in the dark cell are ringed with deep eye-bags and other tiny nicks are peppered across his face. 

He offers him a square of ambrosia, wincing. It’s the worst case he’s seen in a while, and that’s saying a lot. “It’s to help.” He says in response to Jeongin’s questioning look. He slides it into his mouth. 

“What’s it taste like?” Chan coaxes, hoping to draw back some happier childhood memories, for ambrosia tasted like the consumer’s favourite food.

“Nothing.” He chews tentatively. “Just bland.” 

Oh.

The ambrosia makes quick work of the smaller, scattered cuts, and Chan starts applying salve on the worst of them, carefully bandaging them. He doesn’t protest. 

“How much d’you know about all this? Like, your heritage, and stuff.” 

The electricity has calmed down somewhat, but at that, it springs back, and Chan hopes to the gods the shield holds up. 

He picks at a nail. “Nobody, like, explained it. I mean, I knew about Zeus being my father, I know there’s a bunch of monsters from like, Greek myths and stuff. And there’s other people like me. With powers.”

“That’s good for now. The place, I’m bringing you too if you’re willing, there are people like you. I’m like you. There’ll be people to train you, teach you how to stay safe.” 

The zigzags of electricity stop cracking as fiercely. 

“Here.” He passes a flask of nectar over. 

“How’s water meant to help?” Jeongin wrinkles his nose after a sip. The wounds start closing faster and he takes another one. 

His heart wrenches again. 

He takes the flask back and has a quick gulp to boost his energy a little. The smooth, liquid flavour of cool lemonade is a breath of fresh air. 

“Do you think you could stop the, um…” 

“Can’t.” He looks miserable. “I was, really, so, so angry, and it just went out of control. If they want to stop me, they usually just knock me out. You could do that.”

“It’s fine, just I’m scared the water won’t hold up to it, y’know? It’s okay, once you get enough training, you’ll be able to control it. So, you wanna get out of this place?” 

Jeongin lifts his head to the streams of artificially white light pouring in through the person sized hole Changbin made. He looks hopeful. A little tentative, maybe, but anyone would be. He nods slightly.

Chan pulls himself up. “Can you stand?” He asks, careful not to overstep, when Jeongin doesn’t follow.

When he flushes a little, Chan notes the gashes on his legs have yet to be healed.

Chan offers his back to him. He climbs onto it with a small smile on his face. 

“You’re safe now.” He says, turning his head back to smile at Jeongin. 

It’s not just empty words; it’s a promise.


	2. Chapter 2

An Introduction of Sorts (2)

His father backhands him so sharply across the face that Hyunjin lands on his bum ungracefully. _Still got it, old man,_ he thinks vindictively, but he would never dare to voice it out loud. 

He digs his hands into the soft carpet, squeezing his eyes shut as his father’s fist rushes down to his jaw. “Hyunjin! It’s almost time!” He opens his eyes again and sees his frenzied manager. His father’s fist stops a couple centimetres for his face and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He pushes himself up and walks over. 

With almost practiced ease, his manager sighs and dabs the concealer from his bag frantically on his cheek. “Come on!” He urges, neatening his hair and shoving him to the director to shoot the next scene. 

This scene has mostly summed up his life. His father’s an ass, he has a frantic, micromanaging manager, and he acts. Everyone who’s ever worked with him in anything clearly knows what his father does to him, can see it in the hastily covered bruises and flinching in pain when certain places are touched, all right after ‘talking’ to his father. 

No one dares to say anything. His father is acting royalty, with a few daesangs under his belt, thirteen hit dramas and movies, and recently he’s even considering branching out to Hollywood. 

A lot of things would be solved if someone could speak up, but it’s a rare few people who will be brave or care enough to. The acting industry is so filthy already that they’ve probably faced greater scandals and stayed mum. Why would his case be any different?

He’ll be stuck in this cycle forever, and if he stays too deep into that thought, he’ll just spiral down. So he suppresses like a pro.

Later, he’s in the car, sipping on a coffee. “Can we have tteokbokki for lunch?” He asks. For no particular reason, he’s craving spicy red-hot deliciousness today. His manager uses the mirror to cast a nervous look at his father. “Absolutely not,” his father says matter-of-factly. “Oily and spicy. You’ll have a breakout from all the garbage clogging your pores.” 

_Maybe I don’t care._

“Please.” He punctuates strongly, surprising himself. Is he that adamant about rice cakes? “I don’t have a schedule tomorrow.” 

He glances over, fully expecting him to be near exploding. 

His father is… strangely, straining against… something. His face turns an unnaturally bright shade of red and short, heavy pants of breath come out. His manager looks worried, glancing over, fidgeting a little with his phone probably in case he needs to get a mental hospital to prescribe why his father is acting like a bull or something. 

He opens his mouth and Hyunjin braces himself, but his tone is unbelievably light and easy. There’s a smile, an actual fucking real grin, on his face. “Of course we can, then! I know a good one in the area!” 

Dear god, he’s fucking possessed. He’s fucking speaking with exclamation marks, and that makes Hyunjin way more scared the he would be against anger. He fingers the clasp of his seatbelt in case of the need of a special getaway

His father’s face scrunch and squeezes, lips puckering like he sucked a lemon, and in a few rather amusing seconds, his face turns from puke green to brilliant purple. 

Then he goes absolutely bonkers.

He starts screaming, so loudly, so deranged, looking at Hyunjin like the shit under his shoe. He yanks the car door open with an impressive amount of force, then makes his way outside the driver's seat. “GET OUT.” Comes his muffled demand from outside. 

His manager looks, slack-jawed, eyes widened. He looks just as confused as Hyunjin, and just as scared. His jaw sets slightly and his mouth opens like he’s about to protest, but he closes it again. Hyunjin’s hands are laced together, so tight his knuckles turn white. He subtly shakes his head, a request and a plea all at once. 

His manager hesitates, then gets out of the car silently, letting his father slide into the seat and pull out of the parking lot. 

They’ve been going for an hour, and gradually, the metropolis fades into the countryside in shades of green and brown. At some point he has given up trying to figure out where his father is bringing him, so with his head slumped against the cool glass of the window, he falls into a sleep, plagued with nightmares about his father taking the knife, smiling like the Joker in the movies, maniacally stabbing it into his flesh with a hungry look in his eyes. His blood spurts everywhere, and all he can think is _all because I wanted rice cakes?_

Hyunjin wakes to a rough slap to his cheek. Nothing like good old humid nights, physical violence, and his father’s face, eyes shiny with a mad sort of light to wake up to. Barely coherent, his pathetic self can’t even fight back as his father drags him into the dusty, grassy ground and stomps on his gut once for good measure. 

It burns. Like his award winning scene in that movie, except there are no props, a trickle of sticky red blood flows slowly out.

“Spoiled brat tries to fucking control me like his mother.” His father spits, literally and figuratively, the sticky globule of saliva on the ground. 

His father scrabbles in the dirt, whispering to himself like a madman. Or rather, like Gollum, crooning my preciousssss. 

And honestly, Hyunjin doesn’t know what to think anymore. 

Until his father finds a sharp rock and raises it, aiming right at his head. He’s ripped enough that it would kill. 

Hyunjin’s immobile, the shock of everything that happened in the last few hours pinning him down. He closes his eyes, waiting. 

“I’ll leave your body here, I will. For her lot to admire. That will be a sight, won’t it?” He breaks off into a stream of wheezy, pathetic giggles. “She told me to bring you here. This will be a big slap in her face, won’t it.” 

His mother. Is he talking about his mother? Her lot? 

There’s something, right then, that stirs the air. It smells like… roses? For some reason, it comforts him. At least it masks the sweat and dirt of his father. 

“Look, Jeongin! You still haven’t told me why you ran out here like a possessed person!” 

Two silhouettes run down the hill. Hyunjin’s vision is too spotty to notice much, but he hopes that they will, or can, help. 

“Holy shat!” Says that same guy with the deafening yell he heard initially. 

A blast of something from the sky, tinged with electricity, knocks into his father, and pushes him off. 

He quickly crawls away on his elbows. 

“What happened?” The other boy crouches next to him. 

“I… don’t know. There were those rice cakes and then he brought me here, and… and.” He trails off as he realises he’s just rambling incomprehensibly. 

The boy with pointy thin eyes starts off after his father’s crumpled form. “Want me to kill him?” He asks calmly, net of lightning crackling around his fist, poised to strike.

“No!” Hyunjin yelps. He’s still his father, even if he’s the sorriest excuse for one. “He’s my father. Maybe just take him to a really good mental hospital. Like really really good.”

“Okay, come on, now, Jeongin-ah.” The boy next to him, who Hyunjin notices has very cute round cheeks, helps him up. “Let’s go back to camp and Chiron can settle your father.”

“You’re lucky Innie ran out here at that time.” He grunts. “Fuck you tall people.” It highlights how he has to tiptoe slightly to support him. Hyunjin laughs brightly  
both at the jab and the actual absurdity of the situation. 

“What’s actually happening? Who are you people? Why does he have lightning? Why did my dad-” Hyunjin asks once he’s semi-coherent and sees the absurdity of the situation. 

“Good questions with answers that are far too long. For now—“

“You’re a demigod, Hyunjin.” He grunts in a fake, croaky deep voice.

Hyunjin very embarrassingly almost trips over his own feet.

“Always wanted to use that line. Anyway, welcome!” 

Minho takes a big, victorious bite of the crunchy chicken. Juices spurt out and he’s in absolute heaven. “Good job, everybody.” he calls out through a bite of chicken in that quiet but firm way of his.

“YEAHHH! GOOD JOB EVERYBODY!!!!” As always, Hoshi, their leader sounds kind of high and maniacal, and now he’s even more buzzed at their victory at the competition. 

But Minho doesn’t mind. This first place is a shiny new finish to his application for the dance academy he’s wanted to apply to since forever. After going through the exhausting social process of interaction, he lifts his dance bag and walks to the apartment, still in happy spirits.

He trots down a handy shortcut he found as a curious child. He barely takes a few steps in before there’s a sharp, precise blow to his forehead and he slumps to the ground.

His head hurts. Everything hurts, and the ground he’s lying spread-eagled on seems to be swirling. “Ow,” he grunts, sitting up. There’s a huge bump at the top of his head that still aches, and the field, or on second look, hill, he’s lying on is a far cry from the bustling streets of Seoul. “Where am I?” 

Something’s blocking the sunlight, or rather, it’s a tall, handsome man who’s handsome enough to pull off a buzz cut. He has those ridiculously expensive sunglasses, a leather biker jacket, and disgusting red leather pants. 

Minho staggers up into a weak sort of karate stance that his teacher would be horrified at. “Who are you, asshole?” For some inexplicable reason, he’s feeling extra aggressive next to the man. He wanted to fight someone, to beat them up, get into those good old-fashioned tussles. 

These weren’t his thoughts. He pressed the side of his head, hard, as though trying to extract it out. 

The man whipped the shades off in a single, flashy motion that would have put models to shame, revealing a pair of red eyes. It wasn’t the glassy doll-like red of contacts. It was the brilliance of twin blazing suns, swirling with depths of ancient, otherworldly power. Something in Minho told him that a black belt in karate would do little more than amuse this man, whoever he was. His fists fell limply to his sides. 

“You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Not like those stupid upstarts, trying to pick a fight just for the heck of it.” His features curve into an unsettling sort of smile. “Only people who know how to pick their battles can truly win. Such is war.”

Minho remains quiet. This man spoke with a brimming sort of confidence that was reminiscent of a triumphant general who knew that all the enemy was doing was playing into his hands. Certainly not an ordinary sort of abduction.

“Here. A gift. Let’s see what form it takes on.” He digs into some kind of pocket in his jacket, pulling out a plain cube of some smooth bronze. Minho takes it,   
turning it over in his palm curiously. It’s hefty and probably worth a pretty penny. 

It suddenly starts pushing in different directions, like a weird slime monster. He quickly drops it and backs away, frantically wiping his hands on the back of his jeans, looking at it with the same manner he looks at cat poo (it’s absolutely disgusting). What had he just touched? 

He blinks, and in that mere split second, an elegant gun has replaced slime Monster. Elegant is typically not a common word to describe deadly objects, but it was the first adjective that sprang to his head as he took in the smooth curves of the pistol. 

“Not bad! A semiautomatic. Saves a lot of trouble on the reloading. This one has a little special something I stuffed in there for you, the bullets won’t run out. Helpful if you’re fighting against a lot of enemies.” The man observed, as calmly as if they were having a mundane conversation of the weather and not assessing the features of a bronze cube that had magically turned into a gun. 

“This isn’t legal.” Is the first thing to slip out, somehow the stupidest thought in his head is selected to be output. 

“Hard to follow the law as you’re running for your life, boy.” There’s a smirk in his voice that Minho takes immense offense at. 

“I wouldn’t be running for my life. I wouldn’t be running at all if I could help it.” He snarks back. 

“Sharp tongue! Just like your mother, I see. But enough small talk.” He pushes Minho, none too gently, flicking up the gun with his foot neatly and shoving it into his hands, so Minho ends up beyond this weirdly lone pine tree with a gun in his hands. And when he looks back, the man is gone. 

Like… gone gone. Disappeared. Poof. Minho looks around, wind whipping at his face furiously, but no strange man pops out and calls his bluff. He squints. 

This is probably a dream, right? Maybe he fell asleep after reaching home. He pinches his arm hard. Ow. Not a dream. 

Fuck, that’s worse.

Meow.

In the most random place in the world, Minho finds a cat. His ears prick up almost immediately, cat lady instincts activated. 

“Ppspsppspsps.” he whispers. “Here, kitty kitty.” 

He finds it a few paces away. It's soft and fluffy and it has eyes of dark, shiny pools. An excellent specimen. He reaches out to pat its head. 

Before he can, it turns into some kind of fucking mutant, and he backs away, running. (Fuck, he’s actually running for his life.) It had the head of a balding, middle aged man with a hooked nose, the sleek golden body of a tawny lion, and a black and white spines of a porcupine. 

It that shit isn’t fucking enough, one of the spines shoot out like a freaking arrow. And the fucker has two rows of lethally sharp teeth. 

He’s officially fucked. He should start writing his biography. 

_Lee Minho. Born 25 October, 1998._

With shaking hands, he instinctively raises the gun and hesitantly squeezes the trigger. 

_Died to a stupid monster in the middle of some stupid hills in the middle of fucking nowhere._

A bronze bullet made out of what seems to be the same material as his gun whizzes out. It doesn’t make a dramatic bang like he’d initially been scared of. Is there a silencer?

_Loving son to a nice mother and an asshole jerk father who was never there._

It hits its skin, miraculously, but it does little more than give it a small graze. It roars. Oh, great, now it’s angry. As a certified dad of three cats, he can tell. 

_Will be missed by his three cats and mom._

It snarls, patience depleted, and pounces with incredible power, clearing the distance in one leap. 

Fuck. 

Right before it’s about to sink it’s meaty jaws into his juicy flesh, a wave that seemingly appears out of nowhere sweeps it away. It swirls into a smooth, swirling globe of water that floats above the ground. Shocked, the scam kitty struggles and snorts out bubbles, moving frantically.

"Now, Innie! Not much longer!" 

"I can't do it on command! Make me angry!"

"Fine! Innie, you're a horrible person!" 

"That was weak!"

"And untrue! You're a sweet child!"

Lightning crackles, charging the water ball and zapping the stupid scam kitty. The water ball disappears and its dead body slumps onto Minho like a heavy, yucky, smelly rug. 

A boy, no, teen with windblown blond curls crouches next to him, sweat marring his brow, looking near collapse. “You okay?” He asks, brow knitted in concern despite his own sorry state. “That was a nasty one. Thank god it was all over you, so it didn't notice me.” He heaves the scam kitty off of Minho so that air can actually flow to his lungs. A taller boy with thin, fox-like eyes runs over and helps him up. 

“What the actual fuck is going on.” He deadpans, going into statue mode as the adrenaline gradually wears off. 

“It’s… complicated.” 

“What’s your name, then? Tell me your name at least.” 

“I’m Chan. He's Jeongin” 

“Minho.” 

“Is that a fucking summer camp that you’re taking me to?” Minho complains as they finally catch a glimpse of the camp. 

“That’s also complicated.” 

“Fine, be like that. Don’t even try to explain the scam kitty monster abomination. Or that stupid old man.” 

“What stupid old man?” 

“It’s complicated.” 

“Hey!” 

Kim Seungmin, as a general rule, does not venture into deep dark downright scary forests at midnight in search of his buried family knife. Not that he’s ever been in such circumstances before.

The trees seem looming and treacherous, and he suddenly longs for the cold yet familiar halls of the private boarding school that’s all he’s ever known. He remembers very little about who his parents were. He wants to find out, has wanted to since he could read. But with very few leads on scattered memories, it’s almost impossible.

Someone was financing his pricey school fees, sure, but he had been told repeatedly by his father’s lawyer that it was a trust fund specifically for his education. So that lead was dead. The lawyer remained tight-lipped about all personal details. His sour, pinched lips repeated like a broken recorder— “My client’s information is confidential.”

All he had left of them was a sleek hunting dagger made of some smooth silver that had been in the same bag with his baby clothes. Which was the reason he was even out here. He had been out for a special botany class in the forest. 

In retrospect, dropping the dagger he had been examining for the umpteenth time into the dirt when his Science teacher who had been droning about obscure plant facts gazed at him suspiciously was not the smartest thing to do. 

Weapons were prohibited at the school to protect the rich heirs. The last thing he wanted to do was get expelled. 

So yes, he had dumped the dagger into the dirt and kicked even more dirt over it, effectively obscuring it and dooming himself to this late night excursion.

He had dressed in a thin windbreaker that did little against the cold, and brought a small flashlight but nothing else. The eerie sound of frigid wind rustling through the thin, flexible branches of the trees was scary enough for him to quickly pick up his pace. 

There! In the dim moonlight, he sees a flash of silver. Puffing a small breath of relief, he pulls it out of the dirt. He stands up, shrugs his windbreaker tighter around him, and screams. 

It’s an absolutely gigantic ant, close in size to Seungmin, the moonlight bouncing off of its glossy, hard shell. It is also looking directly at Seungmin. 

A genetic manipulation malfunction? A chemical gone wrong? A very big freak of nature? It could have been anything. He judges his odds and firmly decides he hates them. 

He grips the knife tighter in his hands, yells for help again, hoping for some weirdo still awake at this time to hear, and runs. 

He has severely underestimated the speed of a giant ant. He spies a chance and ducks into some thick undergrowth, hoping that the ant cannot fit. 

Spoiler alert: It can. Cursing softly under his breath, he whirls around, aims for the chink in its shell, and throws, praying that thoseyears of pitching pay off. 

It hits it precisely -- a small miracle, yet the stupid ass doesn’t die, because the universe is against Seungmin. 

Or maybe not. A silver arrow zips through the air, hitting the exact spot. Of course this time it kills the ant. 

“That’s the last of them.” The girl with a silver circlet peeking through her black curls tells the other, fourteen-ish girl with silver eyes by her side. She puts down her bow, and finally notices Seungmin. An etch appears between her brows. Behindher, there is a very intimidating group of thirty, maybe forty teenage girls, all dressed in identical silver fleece and wielding the same silver bows. 

“A son of Athena,” The girl with silvery eyes pronounces, her eerily glowing gaze sweeping over him dismissively. “Interesting.”

“The goddess of wisdom.” Seungmin mutters. Then he registers what she just said. “Her son? Me?” 

“A newbie, no less.” The girl with a circlet says. “And yet…a fairly decent shot.” She crouches down, retrieving his knife. The girl with silvery eyes takes it, and Seungmin would protest if she wasn’t so heavily armed. 

“Who are you?” he asks, struggling to keep a small shudder out of his voice.

“You are honoured to be in the presence of Lady Artemis and her Hunters.” She looks at him like chewed gum. 

“This is a hunter’s knife. Specifically, Hannah’s.” SIlver Eyed girl says. No, Artemis. Her eyes start looking more like twin moons the more he looks, and the quiver of silver arrows strapped to her back makes him question how he could have ever missed the goddess of the hunt. “Your grandmother, perhaps.” 

“Oh.” He frowns, then smooths his forehead out, unsure how to act in front of a literal mythological figure. “She was a hunter?” 

“A fine one. I suppose… I shall not turn you into a jackalope.”

“Thanks?” 

“Additionally, I will grant you safe passage to the camp.” The knife is tossed back to him. Taken by surprise, he barely grasps it in time. “What camp?”

Circlet girl smirks. “Try to keep up, newbie.”

A well polished silver knife sails through the air with a _thwip_ and sinks up to its hilt in the flesh of a mymerke, killing it instantly. Jisung whoops. “Nice one, Seungminnie!”

“Yeah!” Hyunjin cheers enthusiastically, shaking Seungmin excitedly, as though to make up for Seungmin’s complete unenthusiasm. He dryly wipes blood and guts of his retrieved knife.

“You looked happier when you did that bottle flip while walking.” Jeongin jibes. Chan giggles. 

There’s a crashing and general chaos, then Minho bursts out, tumbling into Jisung with an ‘oof’, scuffed and very very disgruntled. 

“Where’s Changbinnie? Did you guys find their nest yet?”

“There was this injured boy...he was speaking english, we needed Chan to translate...Changbin’s staying with him for now...we don’t know where he came from...it;s better if you come see for yourself.” Minho jerks a thumb towards the rough path he’s hewn through the overgrown plants. 

After countless innocent leaves have been mercilessly crunched against their feet and Minho has cursed the low-hanging branches thwacking into his face five times, they reach a small clearing where Changbin is indeed, kneeling by the side of a boy with silver hair who’s slumped against a tree. His hair doesn’t look dyed despite its striking colour, yet nobody could naturally grow silver hair. Unless…

“Is he a dryad?” Seungmin muses. 

“Probably?” Chan says. _“Hey, do you speak English? My name’s Chris.”_ He crouches on one knee beside Changbin. 

_“Yes, yes! I…My name’s Felix. I was told a couple of days ago that I was a demigod, and I needed to come here to be safe from the monsters. I mean.. I always knew I was only half-dryad, but I always thought my father was human. My mother...she’s a dryad… was originally from Korea...but she moved to Sydney where she met my dad. She told me the Australian camp was pretty wild and sent me here instead. I couldn’t find it...got really lost in the forest.”_ He has a cavernously deep voice that is at odds with his delicate, pixie-like features. Relief floods his doe eyes at the familiar English even as he haltingly explains.

Chan blinks at the influx of information. _“You’re from Sydney? That’s crazy! Me too!”_

_“Woah!”_

“Care to translate?” Changbin asks.

“Ohhhh god. Okay..so basically…” Chan sighs.

“Did your mom tell you who your dad is?” Seungmin asks softly as Chan struggles to translate, having grasped the gist of it due to the brief but comprehensive English course he took at the private school.

_“Apollo. The sun god.”_

“OH YES! What’s up, my brother!” Jisung yells, high-fiving Felix.

Felix smiles, his pretty freckles disappearing into the folds of his smile wrinkles.

 _“Sorry about Jisung.”_ Chan finally finishes giving an entire Ted talk to Minho, Changbin, and Jeongin. _“Let’s get you to camp, hmmm?”_

“Okay!” Felix replies cheerfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok lemme quickly put a small explanation for these four backstories cause they kinda require a tiny bit of information to make sense  
> -in hj's part even though i did not state it his father was possessed by a mania (like evil roman spirit that turns people mean and mad, might be inaccurate definition tho) for a very long time  
> -obviously hj has loads of charmspeak power (basically he can convince people to do what he wants them to) and he's an aphrodite (goddess of love) child even tho i had no idea how to slot that in  
> -so hj was like omg i want rice cake --> accidentally uses charmspeak --> makes mania possessed faherr very angry --> mania father to breaking point --> blah blah blah
> 
> -minho's dad is ares btw which is also the guy who gave him the gun  
> -the creature that attacked him is a manticore (Greek beast with the head of a man, the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion)  
> -chan and yji teamed up cos water conducts electricity pretty well and they zapped the life out of scam kitty  
> -that's abt it
> 
> -yes sm's grandma was a hunter and his knife is just cool'  
> -the giant ant is a mymerke hopefully its spelt correctly and yes the ambiguity abt his family is kinda? impt
> 
> -lixie isn't vv complicated  
> -yes they were hunting down more giant ants for a bit of irony to sm's part  
> -yes im planning for lix to hv a bow because archer lix is literally canon  
> -lix powers...hmmm stay tuned
> 
> whew, guess who finally learnt to add italics! im am slowly progressing out of boomer stage congratulate me. yes updates will still be kind ainfrequent as exams not over yet. ill also probs finish my other story b4 updating this one lol

**Author's Note:**

> Productivity! This work is going to be long :( rip my fingers. Updates will be infrequent and possibly take very long during the next 3-4 weeks because exams :// Hope you enjoyed! Next four emo backstories coming soon.
> 
> [8/9] he doesn’t have much of a role in this story so I can quickly edit him out, but updates will be delayed. if any of you are shocked and panicked, my Twitter @ is seungjinhaven. My dms are open for anyone who doesn’t understand the situation or just needs someone to talk to.


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